1877.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
463 
deeply plowed in the autumn, and in the spring 
thrown into straight ridges, or drills, 30 inches 
apart. Manure—a well worked compost is best- 
should be spread liberally in the drills, and this 
covered with the plow, leaving high ridges over the 
manure. A light roller flattens the ridges down, 
so that the seed may be put in with a seed drill. 
This preparation makes subsequent cultivation 
easy. The earth on the flanks of the ridges may be 
hoed down and laid back again repeatedly, with 
the Share’s horse-hoe, an implement which I value 
above all cultivators and kindred tools, for working 
in corn, potatoes, or root crops. Mangels may be 
sowed as late as the first week in June, but it al¬ 
ways entails a real grief to the farmer to be obliged 
to stop them just when they are growing so well in 
October, in order to get them under cover or in the 
pits before they are injured by the frost. They, do 
not bear much freezing. A frost that wilts the 
leaves, and even forms a crust upon the ground, 
will not damage the roots, but that is a warning to 
be heeded; two or three nights in succession when 
the ground freezes, will seriously damage a crop of 
beets or carrots. Besides, the loss of the tops is to 
be avoided; these may be fed to the stock to good 
advantage, if the harvesting can be made to stretch 
through a week or two. The leaves must, however, 
be laid in quite small heaps, or they will heat and 
become worthless. I meet with no more gratifying 
evidence of improvement in agriculture, than the 
increased attention given to root crops, which is 
especially observable in New England. 
It will certainly pay every farmer who wishes to 
produce milk in winter or early spring, or who 
wants his cows to come through the winter in the 
very best order, to prepare his land during the win¬ 
ter, if he has any chance to do plowing, in anticipa¬ 
tion of putting in mangels next spring, I do not 
intend to omit the mention of parsnips and carrots 
in writing about root crops. Parsnips are eco¬ 
nomical food for cows, though the produce per 
acre does compare with that of beets, yet there is 
no better milk-making diet, and there is no trouble 
about housing them in winter, except for winter 
use. The greatest amount of milk I have ever 
known to be produced by cows, is when they have 
had a full supply of parsnips in the spring. Of 
course, grain in some form is fed also. Say 12 qts. 
of bran, 6 quarts of fine corn meal on cut hay, and 
all the parsnips a cow wants to eat, will make her 
give milk, if she is capable of it. 
Talks on Farm Crops—Ho. 10, 
By the Author of “ Walks and Talks on the Farm," 
“ Harris on the Pig," etc. 
The Squire had a great growth of corn-stalks, 
but the corn did not ear well. He planted it in 
hills with a machine, 3i feet apart. But the ma¬ 
chine dropped too many kernels in a hill, and the 
corn was too thick to ripen. “ And yet,” said the 
Deacon, “ when com is drilled in, there are more 
plants per acre.”—“ True,” said I, “ but they are 
not so close together. They are scattered along 
the row. When you have seven plants in each 
hill, 31 feet apart, you are pretty certain to have 
poor corn; but if those seven kernels were planted 
along the row, six inches apart, the com, if the 
land was rich enough, would be none too thick. I 
have seen such a crop ripen perfectly. I think you 
will find that nearly all the large crops of corn that 
we read about, are raised on rich land, are planted 
early, and have more plants per acre than the ordi¬ 
nary crops of corn. But if the land is poor, there 
is nothing to be gained by thick p lan ting As a 
rule, the sun is capable of maturing more com than 
the soil will sustain, and our main object is, to 
make the soil richer. When this is done, then we 
can have more plants per acre, but they should not 
be too close in hills. If the machine would make 
the rows 31 feet apart one way, and then drop two 
kernels 12 inches apart, or one kernel 5 or 6 inches 
apart, we could raise more corn than if in hills 31 
feet apart each way. And we should get more 
fodder, which, in this section, is quite an object.” 
“ Speaking of corn,” said the Doctor, “I would 
like to know why ‘ Evergreen Corn ’ is not so ever¬ 
green as formerly. I raised a good crop of it this 
year, expecting to have it for several weeks, but it 
soon got so hard that it was not fit for the table.” 
“ I have beard the same complaint,” said I, “ and 
the fact was used to show that varieties degenerate. 
But the difficulty may be accounted for on an en¬ 
tirely different hypothesis. The variety has not 
degenerated. It has been improved by the seed- 
grower. The difficulty with the seed-grower is, to 
get this variety of evergreen corn to ripen its seed. 
He wants a good crop of sound, mature com. He 
‘ breeds ’ for this object, and the fact that our so- 
called evergreen corn will now get ripe earlier than 
formerly, shows how easy it is for a skillful seed- 
grower to accomplish his object.” 
We may learn a useful lesson from this. When 
we want corn to ripen perfectly, we must select for 
seed such ears as grow the largest and ripen the best. 
“ That is all very well,” said the Doctor, “ but I 
want green corn for the table.”—“ Very well then,” 
said I, “ you must select your seed with this object 
in view. What you want, are ears of com that will 
not ripen before frost comes. If any ripen, reject 
them. The others you must ripen in-doors on the 
stalks, and seed so obtained will be likely, if it 
grows at all, to give you evergreen com.” 
Early varieties of potatoes, other things being 
equal, cannot yield so large a crop per acre as the 
late varieties. “And yet, last year,” said the 
Deacon, “your Early Bose and Early Vermonts 
and Snowflakes all yielded more per acre than the 
Late Rose in the same field, and considerably more 
than the Peachblows in a field adjoining.” 
“True,” said I, “but you overlooked that little 
clause ‘other things being equal.’ The conditions 
were not the same. The ‘ bugs ’ hurt the late va¬ 
rieties far more than the early ones, and a severe 
drouth set in about the time the late varieties 
ought to have been making their fastest growth. 
If we had killed the bugs, and if the season had 
been as favorable for the late varieties as for the 
early kinds, the late crop would have been the 
largest per acre. In a favorable season for early 
varieties, and a favorable one for late varieties, the 
late ones will produce the largest crop. They have 
a longer time to grow. If the early maturing 
kinds are to grow as large as those which have a 
longer time to grow in, they must have richer food.' 1 ' 1 
The Peachblow was formerly one of the most 
profitable varieties of potatoes grown in this sec¬ 
tion. It was a vigorous grower and a “ rank feed¬ 
er.” H there was any food to be had, it would 
find it, and it would keep on growing until the 
frost stopped it. And yet the average crop was 
not over 125 bushels per acre. 
We are now planting early varieties. And there 
are good reasons for the change. But let no one 
suppose that land which, in a favorable season, 
would produce only 125 bushels of Peachblow* po¬ 
tatoes per acre, will produce 125 bushels of Early 
Rose. If we want a large crop of early potatoes, 
we must have rich land—and that, whether the 
potatoes are planted early or late. They grow 
rapidly and mature early, and must have rich land. 
This year I planted my potatoes in rows, 21 feet 
apart. We made furrows with the plow, and spread 
some rich, well-rotted manure in the furrows, and 
dropped the potato sets on the manure, 12 to 15 
inches apart, and covered with the plow and then 
rolled—first lengthwise of the furrows and then 
crosswise. The manure did not hurt the potatoes. 
We never had potatoes of such superior quality— 
especially the Early Vermonts. The crop was a 
good one, but I am satisfied the manure did not do 
as much good as it was capable of doing. When 
we dug the potatoes, the manure was found to be 
dry and comparatively unchanged. It would 6eem 
as though the plants had used but little of it. It 
6eems tome that the better plan would be to apply 
the manure on the land the autumn previous. 
And the same remarks will apply to early cab¬ 
bages and onions.' I applied an abundance of rich 
manure this spring to both these crops, but did not 
get the full benefit. Mr. Hooker tells me that he 
gets a better crop of Early Wakefield and Fottler’s 
cabbage the second year on the same land than the 
first year. I knew that this was the case with 
onions, but supposed new laud was best for cab¬ 
bages. And I am not sure that such is not the case, 
provided the manure was applied in sufficient quan¬ 
tity the preceding summer or autumn. I imagine 
that this is the real point. Wc want the land thor¬ 
oughly saturated with the dissolved manure. We 
apply a great deal more manure than the plants can 
appropriate. But this excessive supply of plant- 
,food seems to be absolutely necessary for success 
in raising a good crop of early cabbages. For late 
cabbages, we may also want just as much manure, 
but the plants will appropriate more of it. There 
is not so much need of applying the manure the 
year previous. And I presume a crop of late cab¬ 
bages leaves but little manure in the ground. 
“ I am glad to hear you make that distinction be¬ 
tween early and late crops,” said the Doctor, “I 
believe it is true. Six-rowed barley is earlier than 
two-rowed, and it needs richer and better land. 
Early peas need richer land than late peas. You 
can hardly make the land too rich for early peas, 
and you can hardly sow them too thick. And we 
may expect a better crop of wheat after six-rowed 
barley, than after two-rowed barley or oats—and 
better after early beans than after late beans.” 
“Our wheat,” said the Deacon, who evidently 
wanted to change the subject, “ never looked more 
promising than it did this fall. It is a little too 
good, and the early sown fields are badly affected 
by the Hessian fly. I greatly fear it will be fouod 
next summer that the crop is seriously injured.” 
“ There can be little doubt on that point,” said 
I, “ and if I lived in a section adapted to growing 
spring wheat, I should make preparatiou for put- 
ttpg in as much as possible. We have an unusually 
large area sown to winter wheat, and we all hope 
for a good yield, as there can be little doubt that 
wheat next year will be largely wanted in Europe. 
Whatever the fate of the crop of winter wheat may 
be, we shall be safe in sowing as much spring 
wheat as possible—or rather we may safely sow aR 
the land that can be got into good condition.” 
“It is too late,” said the Deacon, “to do much 
in the way of preparation now.” 
“ There is one thing,” said I, “ that may still be 
done where the ground is not frozen. Take a good, 
strong three-horse plow, and make furrows to carry 
off all the water. Take along a spade and a hoo, 
and wherever there is any water standing on the 
land, let it off.' It is astonishing what a difference 
it makes in the condition of .the land in spring. I 
would do this on all the fields, whether they are in¬ 
tended for wheat,'oats,,barley, com, or potatoes— 
whether they are stubble or sod, wherever you can 
see water on the surface, let it off. Commence at 
the lowest point and work up. You will be sur¬ 
prised to find how much fall there is on land which 
looks perfectly level. A little labor now, will make 
a difference of a week or ten days in the time of 
sowing the wheat in the spring, and that may make 
the difference between a good crop and a bad 
one—the difference between success and failure.” 
“There is one thing,” said the Doctor, “that 
may yet be done to increase the yield of wheat next 
harvest, and that is to top-dress the winter wheat 
early -next spring with, say 200 lbs. of nitrate of 
soda, and 150 lbs. of superphosphate, and in view 
of the probable good price for wheat, it will be 
likely to prove a profitable application in sections 
not too remote from market.” 
“ I do not know about that,” said the Deacon, 
“ but a dressing of hen manure, ashes, and plaster, 
sown early in the spring on light sandy knolls, 
where the wheat is yellow and sickly, sometimes 
has a surprising effect. But I like to 6ave my hen 
manure for corn.” 
“On these light, sandy knolls,” said I, “it is a 
good plan to draw out some barnyard manure in the 
winter, and spread it on the frozen*ground or on 
top of the snow. It often happens that the snow 
blows off of these knolls and leaves them exposed, 
and a slight dressing of manure not only enriches 
the laud, but affords protection to the plants.” 
I do not know anything that can now be done to 
save the plants attacked by the Hessian fly. The 
